Malediction to Modernity
Like vain winds the words are swarming
All around in the air of these days,
Being quoted's to vie for,
But nothing's to die for
Since spirit and words parted ways.
When did the words loose their powers?
When their multiplied weight made us sink,
Printing's proliferation
Became obligation
To drown in what once was a drink.
Discontent in the desert we grumble,
Trade manna for more fleshly prose,
We got sick of the Word
So were given the bird
Till it's started to come out the nose.
The wisdom of wise men has perished,
The learning of learned men dies,
Type the words without heart
And the wonders will start:
Only children can see through the lies.
Today's man takes the news with his coffee,
He gets told when to think, what, and why,
He hears analysts' lectures
And pundits' conjectures,
Yet his eyes hardly glance at the sky.
The machines just can't reproduce spirit,
Nor a camera's picture the day,
It seems almost a crime
To make slices of time,
Now we've started to see life that way.
Only bleeding can come with cross sections,
The girl in the pin-up's not real,
For she can't make a wife,
Image can't give us life,
Nor can sedatives help us to feel.
Still, technology's done it's work nobly,
In the end it's to keep us from pain,
It's a comfort past measure
Reclining in leisure,
Yet we fight off the bedsores in vain.
Transportation and clocks have me running,
I've no time for a leisurely stroll,
As the body grows flaccid
The mind won't stay placid,
And all is not well with my soul.
So you'd better distract me with something:
Music, food, Internet, television,
Whoops, there's a minister,
Isn't he sinister,
Scalpel grown dull from precision.
I'm starting to feel it Doc, listen,
Give me something, the pain is intense!
Like an angel of light
In a lab-coat of white,
Now it's slumber the devil invents.
Still are you sleeping and resting?
Enough, for the time is at hand!
Standing open is heaven
Now twenty-four seven,
But illusion reigns over the land.
If you only wake up for one moment,
It is more than most people will do,
And they'll say what you dreamed
Wasn't all that it seemed,
"Hush now, could you get the light too?"